Hi Wim, Gosh, are some RPTs on the Islands only charging $75 for a tuning? I thought the cost of living in Hawaii was quite high. I'm in Tampa, Florida where prices are typical mid-west USA prices - I'm charging $95 for a tuning and I'm thinking that I might be at the cusp of the lower 50% percentile. Because of the economy I have been reluctant to make the big step to over $100. However, I do charge separately for pitch raises. Do you? I charge $45 for a pitch raise and I do a lot of them. I think my average service call to tune a piano last years was about $125. Shouldn't you be using something closer to southern California or Manhattan fees? What are the techs there charging - $150 for a basic tuning? Terry Farrell On Mar 10, 2010, at 3:53 PM, wimblees at aol.com wrote: > Several of you have said, (Joe, specifically), that all service > calls should be premium, in that we should do what needs to be done > to make the piano play and sound as well as it can. I totally agree > with that. But when a customers calls to ask what I charge for a > "tuning", most of them don't understand the reason for me being one > of the highest price piano tuners in the phone book. I give > "premium" service, and most of my customers appreciate what I do for > them. However, and this is where I have a dilemma, I'm not making > any money giving "premium" service, when most of my customers only > want a "tuning". > > I charge about $15 - $30 more for my tuning than most of the other > piano tuners on Oahu. For my fee, I do spend a little extra to > regulate, voice, clean, etc, not to mention rock solid unisons. But > when a new customer calls, they don't know I will do that. All they > know is I charge a lot more for my tuning than most of my > competitors, including the 2 other RPT's. This week so far, I've > gotten 6 phone calls asking for the price of a tuning, but have only > scheduled 2 of them. The rest are price shopping. I'm getting to the > point where I would rather tune 6 pianos at $75, than 2 at $115. > > I would still like to be able to make about $100 - $120 per service > call, provided I spend the time with the piano. So I have though of > quoting $55 for the first half hour and $25 per 15 minute intervals > after that. I'll say that my basic tuning takes about 45 minutes to > an hour, which will bring to total fee to about $80 - $100. But > then, when I get there, I "sell" them on doing additional work. > It's not what I'm used to doing, but as I said, I'm getting desperate. > > Do any of you charge by the time, with a minimum fee just to show up? > > Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT > Piano Tuner/Technician > 94-505 Kealakaa Str. > Mililani, Oahu, HI 96789 > 808-349-2943 > www.Bleespiano.com > Author of: > The Business of Piano Tuning > available from Potter Press > www.pianotuning.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100310/ec372256/attachment.htm>
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